Towards Interactive Robots in Autism Therapy

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Towards interactive robots

in autism therapy
Background, motivation and challenges*
Kerstin Dautenhahn and Iain Werry

University of Hertfordshire
This article discusses the potential of using interactive environments in

autism therapy. We specifically address issues relevant to the Aurora project,
which studies the possible role of autonomous, mobile robots as therapeutic
tools for children with autism. Theories of mindreading, social cognition
and imitation that informed the Aurora project are discussed and their
relevance to the project is outlined. Our approach is put in the broader
context of socially intelligent agents and interactive environments. We sum-
marise results from trials with a particular mobile robot. Finally, we draw
some comparisons to research on interactive virtual environments in the
context of autism therapy and education. We conclude by discussing future
directions and open issues.
1. Introduction
This article discusses the potential use of interactive environments as learning

and teaching tools for use in the therapy of children with autism. Our discus-
sions draw upon experience gained in the Aurora project, which studies how to
develop autonomous, mobile robots as therapeutic tools for children with
autism (Dautenhahn 1999; Werry and Dautenhahn 1999; Werry et al. 2001a;
Dautenhahn and Werry 2000, 2002). Conceptually, this approach is strongly
related to Seymour Papert’s constructionist approach towards learning (Papert
1980). Such an approach focuses on active exploration of the environment,
namely improvisational, self-directed, ‘playful’ activities in appropriate learning
environments (‘contexts’), which can be used as ‘personal media’. In the mid-
Pragmatics & Cognition 12:1 (2004), 1–35.

issn 0929–0907 / e-issn 1569–9943© John Benjamins Publishing Company
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2 Kerstin Dautenhahn and Iain Werry
1960’s, Papert and his colleagues at the MIT AI LAB developed the program-
ming language LOGO that has been widely used in teaching children. A remote
controlled device (a ‘turtle’ robot) was developed which moved according to a
set of LOGO instructions (cf. the LEGO/LOGO Artificial Life Toolkit for
children; Resnick 1989). The LOGO programming language and LEGO robots
have since been used widely in education.
It is expected that a new generation of children will increasingly use
computer technology in a variety of contexts (professional, educational and
recreational), including interactive robotic toys, digitally enhanced objects and
tangible interfaces (Laurel 1993; Tapscott 1998; Cassell and Jenkins 1999; Druin
and Hendler 2000). New interactive systems and novel interfaces are also likely
to impact on methods of therapy and rehabilitation. ‘Persuasive’ technology
(Fogg 1999) is technology that can influence the opinions, attitudes and
behaviour of people. In particular, the physical shape and behaviour of socially
intelligent agents, that display aspects of human-style social intelligence
(Dautenhahn 1998; Dautenhahn (ed) 2000), are likely to change how we can
teach social intelligence to humans who have difficulties in understanding and
displaying social behaviour.
Recently, Socially Intelligent Agents research has resulted in a variety of
different software and robotic systems which can successfully interact with
humans and show aspects of human-style social intelligence (for an overview
see Dautenhahn and Numaoka 1998, 1999; Dautenhahn (ed) 2000; SIA 2000;
Dautenhahn et al. (eds) 2002). Interesting interactive robotic systems include
the Kismet platform (Breazeal and Scassellati 1999) and the Robota dolls
(Billard et al. 1998; Billard 2000). Kismet is a humanoid face that can generate
expressive social interactions with human ‘caretakers’. Such ‘meaningful’
interactions can be regarded as a stepping-stone for the development of social
relationships between a robot and a human. The Robota dolls are humanoid
robots, developed as interactive toys for children, used as research platforms in
order to study how a human can teach a robot, using imitation, speech and
gestures. Increasingly, robotic platforms are being developed to be interactive
playmates for children (e.g., Montemayor et al. 2000; Cañamero and Fredslund
2000). Besides commercial purposes (see Sony’s Aibo robot), such interactive
robotic systems can potentially be utilised as learning environments or in
rehabilitation/therapy applications, as studied in the Aurora project, which we
describe in more detail in the next section.
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Towards interactive robots in autism therapy 3
2. The AURORA project
2.1 Autism
Autism is a developmental disorder defined by diagnostic criteria specified in
DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, American
Psychiatric Association, 1994). Individuals with autism show a broad spectrum
of difficulties and (dis)abilities, and they vary greatly in their levels of overall
intellectual functioning. However, all individuals diagnosed with autism posses
a common set of symptoms. The National Autistic Society (NAS 2003) lists the
following triad of impairments:
1. Social interaction (difficulty with social relationships; for example, appear-
ing aloof and indifferent to other people, inappropriate social interactions,
inability to relate to others in a meaningful way, impaired capacity to
understand others’ feelings or mental states).
2. Social communication (difficulty with verbal and non-verbal communica-
tion; for example, not really understanding the meaning of gestures, facial
expressions or tone of voice).
3. Imagination (difficulty in the development of play and imagination; for
example, having a limited range of imaginative activities, possibly copied
and pursued rigidly and repetitively).
In addition to this triad, repetitive behaviour patterns and a resistance to change
in routine can generally be observed. These are associated with a significantly
reduced repertoire of activities and interests, stereotypical behaviour, and a
tendency of fixation to stable environments. Rates of occurrence are given
which range between 5–15 in 10000. Unlike a physical handicap, which pre-
vents people from physically interacting with the environment, people with
autism have great difficulty in making sense of the world, in particular the social
world. Autism can, but need not, be accompanied by learning disabilities. For
example, at the higher functioning end of the autistic spectrum we find people
with Asperger Syndrome. Some of them manage to live independently as adults
and to succeed in their profession, but only by learning and applying explicit
rules in order to overcome the ‘social barrier’ (cf. the autobiographic accounts
by Grandin (1995), Grandin and Scariano (1996), Schäfer (1997)). Instead of
picking up and interpreting social cues ‘naturally’ they must learn and memor-
ise rules about what kind of behaviour is socially appropriate during interaction
with non-autistic people. Autism is not, as is often assumed, a voluntary
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decision to retract from the world: people with autism do not have the choice
to live socially or not; the decision has been made for them.
Two different viewpoints exist about how best to support people with
autism: either it is argued that efforts should be undertaken to teach people with
autism the skills they need to interact and survive in the world of typically-
developed people, or it is suggested that they might be happier living separately
in a world specifically designed for them. Empowering people with autism,
allowing them to make their own choice on whether or not to link with the
world of non-autistic people poses many challenges. In order to understand
people with autism we have to not only better understand the causes of autism,
but also find ways to empower them, for example by using computer and
robotic technology, so that they have the choice of whether and to what extent
they want to connect to other people.
2.2 Interactive technology in autism therapy

In 1976, Sylvia Weir and Ricky Emanuel (Weir and Emanuel 1976) published
research which used a LOGO learning environment to catalyse communication
in a seven-year-old boy with autism. They reported positive effects from his
explorations in controlling a LOGO turtle on his behaviour. Although the
mobile robot was remotely controlled, this was, to our knowledge, the first
study that investigated a mobile robot as a remedial1 device for children with
autism. However, unlike our work on the Aurora project: (a) the robot did not
act autonomously, the child remotely operated the robot via a ‘button box’; (b)
the child did not directly (physically) interact with the robot; and (c) only one
child was tested.
More recently, François Michaud and his team at Université de Sherbrooke,
have investigated different designs of autonomous robots, using a variety of
modalities for interaction with people, e.g. music, colour and visual cues. In
contrast to Weir and Emanuel, they use interactive rather than remote-con-
trolled technology with children with autism. The goal of this work is to
engineer robots that can best engage different children with autism, by explor-
ing the design space of autonomous robots in autism therapy. Michaud and
Théberge-Turmel (2002) present narrative accounts of playful interactions of
children with autism with different robots. The robots vary significantly in their
appearance and behaviour, ranging from spherical robotic ‘balls’ to robots with
arms and tails that can play games with the children. The main difference
between this project and our work is that, rather than focusing on the engineering
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aspects of robotic design, our work is primarily guided by therapeutic issues.

Moreover, the study of quantitative and qualitative evaluation and analysis
techniques for assessing robot-child interactions, which is not addressed in
detail by Michaud et al., is central to the Aurora project.
A therapeutic approach, using interactive computer technology with children
with autism, was taken in the Affective Social Quotient (ASQ) project (Blocher
1999). Here, computers were used to support children with autism in learning
about social-emotional cues. Short ‘emotionally-charged’ video clips were used
together with a set of stuffed ‘dolls’ (embodying one emotional expression)
through which the child could interact with the movies. By touching the dolls,
the child could match a doll with a video clip. A child could explore emotional
situations by picking up dolls with certain emotions, or the system prompted
the child to pick up dolls that go with certain clips. A therapist was able to
control and monitor the interactions. The system showed that the human-
intensive, repetitive aspects of existing behavioural therapy techniques can
potentially be automated.
2.3 Brief project description

Since the end of 1998 the project Aurora (AUtonomous RObotic platform as a
Remedial tool for children with Autism) has investigated how an autonomous
mobile robot can be developed into a remedial tool to encourage children to
become engaged in a variety of different interactions important to human social
behaviour. Such interactions include: eye contact, joint attention, approach,
avoidance, following, imitation games etc. We focus on these particular
behaviours since, as we explain in more detail below, they play an important
role in human social cognition and development, and have been studied
extensively in autism research. Moreover, from a practical point of view, these
are behaviours that can realistically be studied with current robotic technology.
Our work is primarily concerned with how robots can be designed and
programmed to be useful in autism therapy or education. As a long-term goal
we envisage that (various designs of) robots could be used with children with
autism by teachers and carers in schools or by parents at home. The project is
mainly based on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Assistive Technology, and
is exploratory in nature, but it is informed by the literature in autism research.
Potentially, our work might be relevant to psychologists considering the use of
interactive robots as experimental tools in the context of autism research and
intervention.
1. a
1. b
Figure 1.(a) The toy truck (left) and the mobile robot Labo-1 (right) used in the
comparative study. Labo-1’s basic sensor configuration consists of active infrared
sensors for obstacle avoidance and pyro-electric sensors, which allow detection and
following of humans. The robot weighs about 6.5 kg. Due to a four-wheel differential
drive it can turn very smoothly. The robot can manage a few kilograms of additional
weight, e.g. when children are pushing the robot or (partially) stepping on it. Words and
simple phrases are produced by the robot in certain situations, by means of a voice
production device (not shown). In the trials the robot moves very slowly, so that even
when it bumps into a child (which rarely happens since the children are very attentive
to the robot’s movements) no harm is done. The robot is robust enough to cope with
being extensively pushed around during the trials.
(b) Two children with autism interacting with the Labo-1 robot. The photo on the left
shows a child who is playing a ‘chasing game’ with the robot. The photo on the right
shows a child who played with the robot for an extended period of time until he needed
to go back to class. He was not afraid to interact with the robot at very close distance.
Most of the time the child was lying on the floor and playing ‘interaction games’ with
the robot, i.e., reaching out and touching the robot which then caused the robot to
approach/avoid the child.
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Figure 1 shows one of the mobile robots used in the Aurora project. In this
paper we concentrate on trials we conducted with this particular robot. The
children who were interacting with the robot were between 8–12 years of age,
and included non-verbal children, i.e., children who could not use language or
usually did not use language.
Teaching methods for children with autism that address therapeutic issues
(e.g., eye contact, joint attention, turn taking, reading mental states, and
emotions) usually involve constrained teaching sessions (e.g., Howlin et al. 1999).
In contrast, robot-human interactions in the Aurora project are deliberately
chosen to be playful, unconstrained and unstructured. Specifically, the children
are allowed to interact with the robot in whatever position they prefer (e.g.,
lying on the floor, crawling, standing — cf. Figure 1). They are also free to
choose how they interact with the robot (touching, approaching, watching from
a distance, picking it up, etc.). Interference by adults is only necessary when the
child is about to damage the robot, or when the child (by pressing buttons)
switches off the robot so that it needs to be restarted. These conditions are very
different from those typical of other projects on robot-human interaction (e.g.,
Kismet or the Robota dolls, both mentioned above), where the human is
expected to interact with the robot while adopting a particular position and
orientation towards the robot (e.g., sitting face-to-face in close vicinity of an
interactive robot that is not moving).
2.4 Theoretical background and working hypotheses

Although we have recently investigated different humanoid and non-humanoid
robotic designs (cf. Dautenhahn and Billard 2002; Robins et al. 2004), in most
of our work we have been deliberately using mobile, non-humanoid robots that
allow for unconstrained interactions as described above. Children and adults
with autism have difficulty interpreting facial expressions and other social cues
in social interaction. Consequently, they often avoid social interactions since
people appear unpredictable and confusing. In contrast to other children, who
enjoy a lively, dynamic and even ‘messy’ playground, children with autism
prefer a predictable, structured and, in this way, ‘safe’ environment. A child
with autism prefers to be in ‘control’ of the interaction. A simple, non-human-
oid, machine-like robot seems therefore very suitable as a starting point for
therapeutic interventions. Generally, using a robot as a remedial toy meets the
challenge of bridging the gap between the variety and unpredictability of
human social behaviour (which can often appear frightening to children with
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autism) and the predictability of repetitive and monotonous behaviour which

children with autism prefer and which can be performed by mobile robots (see
discussion in Dautenhahn 1999).
We hypothesise that (1) a child with autism is sufficiently interested in
‘playing’ with an interactive autonomous robot as it is used in the Aurora
project, (2) the robot can engage the child in interactions which demonstrate
important aspects of human-human interaction (e.g. eye gaze, turn-taking,
imitation games), and (3) (as a long term therapeutic goal) by slowly increasing
the robot’s behaviour repertoire and the unpredictability of its actions and
reactions, the robot can be used to guide the children towards more ‘complex’
forms of interaction, as found in social human-human interactions. In order to
illustrate the latter point, let us consider three different scenarios that represent
three different levels of complexity of robot-child interaction:
– Scenario A: In this very simple context the robot possesses a small behaviour
repertoire, each behaviour being triggered by a certain sensory input that is
provided either by the child or by other inanimate features in the room. In
this scenario, walls and chairs trigger obstacle avoidance, the perception of
a human being triggers approach behaviour, etc. The behaviour of the
robot at a particular moment is solely based on its current perceptions, i.e.,
it behaves in a purely reactive manner. In other words, its control programme
can be conceived of as a set of stimulus-response rules (Arkin 1998).
– Scenario B: In a more complex and ‘natural’ context (i.e., more similar to
human-human interaction), the behaviour of the robot is influenced by its
previous experience, in particular its interaction history. It can distinguish
individual children and adapt to their particular interaction and play styles.
Such a robot responds differently to individual children, e.g., it can encour-
age children that are usually more withdrawn and show low activity levels,
or it can show less encouragement for children with high activity levels (as
far as interactions with the robot are concerned).
– Scenario C: The robot possesses a large behaviour repertoire, including
behaviours that specifically target particular therapeutically useful interactions
such as imitative behaviour. On this level of complexity the robot can change
its behaviour during the interactions with the children, based on its knowl-
edge of the child’s usual interaction style and on an ‘agenda’ (programmed,
say, by teachers, carers, or parents) that is therapeutically relevant. For
example, when interacting with a child that is usually withdrawn, the robot
could begin by initiating interactions on complexity level A, e.g., it can
initiate very simple following-chasing and turn-taking games. Once it
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detects that the child is engaged in interactions, it could introduce more

complex behaviour, or new behaviours that are therapeutically useful, e.g.,
movement imitation, verbal communication, etc.
Other levels of complexity of robot behaviour leading to increasingly more
‘natural’ interactions are possible.
Two areas of theoretical work inspire our approach. Since the Aurora
project is not investigating the nature of autism; nor are we trying primarily to
identify how children with autism are different from other children, in the trials
that are reported in this paper we did not use control groups of non-autistic
children. Furthermore, since we focus on the possible educational and thera-
peutic effects of robots in autism therapy our work is not firmly rooted in any
particular theory of autism. However, we can clearly identify certain concepts
and theories originating from autism research that are relevant to and have
influenced our work. In the next sub-sections we describe some selected work
in autism research and developmental psychology that has informed our work.
2.4.1 Mindreading
Generally humans are, from an early age on, attracted to self-propelled objects
that move autonomously and seemingly with ‘intention’ (Dautenhahn 1997).
Premack and Premack (1995) present a theory of human social competence that
consists of three units: the first unit (intentional system) identifies self-propelled
movements in space and interprets them as produced by intentional objects that
are engaged in goal-directed behaviour, such as escaping from confinement,
making contact with another intentional object, overcoming gravity (e.g.,
seeking to climb a hill). In this way animate and inanimate objects can be
distinguished, since only animate objects can move both in space and time
without the influence of other objects (e.g., a stone can roll downhill, but not
uphill without interference by external forces). Movement in the same location,
however, is interpreted as animate but not intentional. The second unit in
Premack and Premack’s theory is the social system, which specifies the changes
that the intentional objects undergo. This allows one to interpret relations as
possession or group membership. The third unit is the theory of mind system,
which outputs explanations of the actions performed in terms of states of mind
such as perception, desire, and belief.
The effects of the ‘intentional stance’ produced by the above mentioned
mechanisms, in particular the intentional system as the basic unit which selects
the objects to be considered, were convincingly demonstrated in a classical
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experimental study (Heider and Simmel 1944). In this study, human subjects
created elaborate narratives about intentional agents when asked to describe
movements of animated geometric shapes shown in a silent film. Based on
Heider and Simmel’s studies, more recent studies have confirmed and further
refined their results. For example, Oatley and Yuill (1985) showed that cues
signaling a social context increase people’s tendency to use personal and
mentalising descriptions. Rimé et al. (1985) demonstrated that the replacement
of geometric shapes by human-like shapes reduced the intensity with which
subjects attribute emotional states, thus showing that patterns of movement are
more powerful in evoking anthropomorphic interpretations than the appear-
ance of the characters. It has been shown that children as young as three years
can interpret simple patterns of movements as intentional, goal-directed
behaviour (Montgomery and Montgomery 1999). Thus, the interpretation of
patterns of movements as ‘goal-directed’ and ‘intentional’, and the interpreta-
tion of interactions among such moving objects as ‘social’ or ‘mentalistic’, is
fundamental to social intelligence in pypically developing humans.
Bowler and Thommen (2000) showed that children with autism are able to
distinguish mechanical motion from intentional action as well as control groups
of children who were matched according to chronological and verbal mental
age. Abell et al. (2000) investigated the attribution of mental states in children
with autism in more detail. Using computer animations of geometrical objects,
similar to the original Heider and Simmel study, they distinguished between
interpretations in terms of actions in descriptions of randomly moving objects
(e.g., an object bouncing off a wall), interpretation of goal-directed (G-D)
behaviour in descriptions of objects that interacted with each other (e.g.,
fighting, following each other, etc.), and the use of mentalising descriptions for
sequences that involved characters responding to ‘mental states’ (e.g., mocking,
persuading, tricking, etc.). In the random condition the subjects were told to see
‘just triangles’, in the G-D condition the objects were given animal roles, and in
the theory-of-mind condition the objects were identified as people. Results
show that children with autism have impairment in using appropriate mental
concepts when describing animations that involved mental states, even when
these same children passed standard false belief tasks. This demonstrates the
need to study mentalising capabilities for interpreting real-time interactions
that might not be adequately captured by standard false belief tasks.
A more general behaviour reading mechanism is also suggested as the basis
for anthropomorphism (Mitchell and Hamm 1997): evidence indicates that, for
evoking anthropomorphic interpretations using narratives the behaviour of
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objects (in Mitchell and Hamm’s study animals were used) is more important
than other aspects, e.g., the appearance of an object or whether a human is
familiar with the object. People seem to apply these behaviour-reading mecha-
nisms quite readily to inanimate objects such as robots. Every robotics researcher
who has ever given a demonstration of autonomous mobile robots to a general
audience can confirm how readily humans view robots as people (Bumby and
Dautenhahn 1999).
There are many theories that aim to explain autism at a biological, develop-
mental, cognitive, or neurobiological level. For example, the narrative deficit
hypothesis of autism suggests a vital role of preverbal transactional processes in
early development (Bruner and Feldman 1993; see also discussion in Dauten-
hahn 2002). However, the hypothesis of a specific theory of mind deficit in
autism is at present the most widely accepted theory. Many researchers have
contributed to the ToMM framework, including Uta Frith (see Frith et al.
1991), Alan M. Leslie (1994), and Simon Baron-Cohen (see Baron-Cohen et al.
1985). It should be noted, however, that a deficit in theory of mind cannot
account for the whole spectrum of symptoms that are characteristic of autism.
For example, a deficit in executive function (e.g., in planning, impulse control,
initiation of action, etc.) has been proposed that could account for the tendency
towards repetitive and stereotypical behaviour (Russell 1997).
Premack and Premack’s theory of human social competence bears similari-
ty to Baron-Cohen’s suggestion (1995) of four mechanisms underlying the
human mindreading system. The first is the intentionality detector (ID) that
interprets motion stimuli (stimuli with self-propulsion and direction) in terms
of the mental states of goal and desire. These mental states are basic since they
allow for making sense of universal movements of all animals, namely approach
and avoidance, independent of the form or shape of the animal. The ID
mechanism works through vision, touch and audition and interprets anything
that moves with self-propelled motion or producing a non-random sound as an
object with goals and desires. The second mechanism in Baron-Cohen’s
mindreading system is the eye-direction detector (EDD), which only works
through vision. EDD detects the presence of eye-like stimuli, detects the
direction of the eyes, and interprets gazing as seeing (attribution of perceptual
states). This mechanism allows for the interpretation of stimuli in terms of what
an agent sees. ID and EDD represent dyadic relations (relations between two
objects, agent and object, or agent and self), such as ‘Agent X wants Y’ or
‘Agent X sees Y’; however, they do not allow for the establishment of a link
between what another agent sees and wants and what the self sees and wants.
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Sharing perceptions and beliefs is assumed to be beyond the ‘autistic universe’

and requires two additional mechanisms: SAM, the shared-attention-mecha-
nism that allows us to build triadic representations (relations between an agent,
the self, and a third object), and ToMM (theory-of-mind mechanism). ID,
EDD, SAM and ToMM make up a fully developed human mindreading system,
as it exists in biologically typically developing children above the age of four. In
typical development, from birth to about 9 months a child can only build
dyadic representations based on ID and basic functions of EDD. From about 9
to 18 months SAM comes on board and allows triadic representations that
make joint attention possible. SAM links EDD and ID, so that eye direction can
be read in terms of basic mental states. From about 18 to 48 months ToMM is
added, triggered by SAM. The arrival of ToMM is visible for instance through
pretend play. It should be noted that earlier mechanisms are not replaced by
newer ones, for the former continue to function. According to Baron-Cohen’s
analysis children with autism possess ID and EDD. ToMM is missing in all
children with autism, while some of them possess SAM.
As pointed out in the present section, biologically typically developing
children above four years of age detect, are attracted to, and interpret autono-
mous, self-propelled objects such as robots as intentional agents. Most of the
children we work with in the Aurora project are minimally verbal or nonverbal,
and the trials in which they interact with a robot are not specifically designed
for distinguishing the attribution of goal-directed behaviour from the attribu-
tion of mental concepts (Abell et al. 2000). Moreover, due to our application-
oriented approach that is grounded in Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and
Assistive Technology, we do not test the children explicitly with respect to SAM,
ToMM or mentalising abilities. This would go beyond the scope of our project.
As stated previously, our work is not directly based on any particular theory
regarding the nature of a theory of mind in children; it is therefore not our
primary aim to make any claims regarding the children’s theory-of-mind
abilities. However, the theory-of-mind framework raises many issues (self-
propelled movements in space, eye gaze, etc.), which in our opinion lend
themselves to investigation with autonomous robots. We therefore propose
that, potentially, robots could be a useful tool for diagnostic purposes, as well
for theory-of-mind research in autism.
2.4.2 Homo imitans: Interaction games children play

The second strand of theories which the Aurora project is influenced by address
interaction dynamics and imitation games played by children. Imitative and
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rhythmic interaction games (comprising, for instance, vocalisations and body

movements) between infants and caretakers, such as imitation and turn taking,
play an important part in the development of social cognition and communi-
cation in humans (cf. Bullowa 1979; Užgiris et al. 1989; Meltzoff 1996;
Meltzoff and Moore 1999; Trevarthen 2001; Nadel and Butterworth 1999).
Research in developmental psychology shows that infants seem to detect
specific temporal and structural aspects of infant-caretaker interaction dynam-
ics; they are born ready to communicate by being able to reciprocate in rhyth-
mic engagements with the motives of sympathetic partners. Moreover, it has
been suggested by Meltzoff and his colleagues (e.g., in Meltzoff and Moore
1999) that turn-taking and imitation games allow the infant (1) to identify
people as opposed to other objects and (2) to use the like-me-test in order to
distinguish between different persons.
Imitation also plays an important part in play and social learning in both
children and adults. It is necessary for the individual’s social acquisition of a
variety of skills, ranging from vocal imitation in language games to imitation of
body movements (e.g., when instructed how to tie shoe laces). Similarly,
research in robotics and software agents endeavours to employ imitation as a
means of social learning, using machine learning approaches. Importantly, the
social function of imitation in human-human interaction is increasingly recog-
nised as a means to engage others in interaction, to express interest, and to
develop the coordinated interaction central to verbal and nonverbal ‘dialogues’.
For a comprehensive overview of research on imitation in animals and robots see
the contributions in Dautenhahn and Nehaniv (2002).
Imitation is an important mechanism of social learning in human culture,
but also a powerful means of signalling interest in another person, used for
purposes of communication. According to Nadel et al. (1999), immediate
imitation is an important format of communication and is a milestone in the
development of intentional communication. It links the imitator and the
imitated in synchronised activity, creating intersubjective experiences by
sharing topics and activities. Even unconscious temporal synchronisation and
rhythmic coordination of movements between people play an important role in
communication and interaction in human culture, as demonstrated by early
studies in proxemics (Hall 1966). Temporal synchronisation of behavioural
dynamics has also been implemented in studies with robot-human interaction,
e.g., Dautenhahn (1999).
Opinions on deficits of children with autism with respect to imitation vary
(e.g., Rogers 1999; Charman et al. 1994) and often depend on the particular
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psychological theories on the nature of autism that the particular research

group supports. It is agreed, however, that, in general, children with autism
seem to imitate less frequently; in particular they seem less able to imitate
actions and gestures (Jordan 1999).
In autism research, several studies have investigated the impact of imitation
in interactions of children with autism and an adult experimenter. For example,
Tiegerman and Primavera (1981) tested the effect of three play conditions on
the frequency and duration of object manipulation of children with autism. In
a study with six children, each child was exposed 11 times to three different
conditions. The first involved the experimenter imitating the child’s actions for
exactly the same duration with the same kind of objects (duplicates). Thus, in
this condition, the child controlled the interaction. In the second condition, the
experimenter performed a different movement with the same, duplicate object,
using the same interaction time, but never imitating the child. In the third
condition the experimenter randomly manipulated the objects, without any
correspondence to the object, action or interaction time used by the child.
Thus, in the third condition, the child had no control over the experimenter’s
behaviour. Results showed that the imitative interaction condition was most
efficient in increasing the frequency and duration of object manipulation in the
children with autism. This study points out the vital impact of imitative
behaviour in child-adult interactions on the child’s performance (in this case an
increase in object manipulation).
In a more recent study, Escalona et al. (2002) found that children with
autism showed more proximal social behaviour (touching) when an unfamiliar
adult imitated the child, compared to the experimenter contingently respond-
ing to, but not imitating the child. In the study, which included twenty children
with autism, the behaviour was judged in the context of a ‘still-face’ condition
right before and after the contingency/imitation phase. The contingent condi-
tion facilitated distal social behaviour (attention). Additionally, motor behav-
iour and vocal stereotypies were found to be reduced. The authors interpret the
results as confirming a previous study (Nadel et al. 2000), which suggested that
in the imitation condition children with autism develop social expectancies that
lead to an increase in attempts to initiate interactions. This suggests the ‘special
nature’ of imitation as a means to facilitate social interaction, and ultimately to
create intersubjectivity.
Escalona et al. (2002) suggest that imitation could be used as an effective
means of intervention with young non-verbal children with autism, a sugges-
tion that is in line with our investigations into imitative behaviour in the
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interaction of robots with children with autism. Indeed, our work focuses
primarily on the social role of imitation (Dautenhahn 1994), i.e., imitation as a
format of communication that creates intersubjectivity in human-human
interaction. We propose that the important link between the dynamics of
imitation, turn-taking and social interactions can be explored with robots.
From an Artificial Intelligence perspective, we previously suggested a
conceptual framework to classify different and increasingly complex dynamics
in robot-human interactions (Dautenhahn and Werry 2000). Within this
framework, robot-human interactions in the Aurora project are designed where
synchronisation of movements, temporal coordination, and potentially the
emergence of imitation games can be used as important mechanisms for ‘social
contact’ between the robot and the child. It is hoped that such an approach,
focusing on interaction dynamics rather than cognitive reasoning mechanisms,
can incrementally facilitate and strengthen the temporal aspects fundamental to
the development of social competence and the ability to socially interact with
people (cf. Hall 1983; Farnell 1999).
There are potentially at least two different ways that contingent and
imitative behaviour can be used in the Aurora project. Firstly, can a robot that
shows behaviour contingent with a child’s performance or that imitates a child’s
movements increase the child’s social behaviour (cf. Escalona et al. 2002)?
Secondly, can we encourage a child to imitate a robot’s movements? In the
latter case, either the robot might be used to assess a child’s imitation skills, or
the imitative behaviour might be used as a stepping-stone towards more
complex interaction. In our work with the mobile robot we focussed on very
simple imitation games where the robot and the child take turns, e.g., in
approach and avoidance games. The ‘imitative behaviour’ that we study is
therefore far simpler than the conditions usually used in autism research.
Note that ‘social behaviour’ in the context of robot-child interaction is
quite different from child-adult or child-child interaction. It is therefore not
clear whether any ‘social behaviour’ shown by a child towards a robot will be
generalised and applied to interactions with people (see below, for a discussion
on generalisation).
2.4.3 Overview of results

The results mentioned in this section refer to Scenario A (Section 2.4), where a
purely reactive robot (Figure 1) tries to engage children with autism in simple,
imitative, interaction games, based on elements of turn-taking. The robot’s
behaviour is guided by a small set of rules, which makes it much more predict-
able and less complex than human behaviour. However, the robot’s behaviour
is not completely predictable. For example, the same ‘approach child’ behaviour
will never be repeated precisely; it will rather be performed in variations. This
issue is important to our work, since we must avoid perpetuating stereotypical
and repetitive behaviour that is characteristic of autism.
Initial trials in the Aurora project stressed the individual nature of the
specific needs of children with autism, but they also showed that most children
responded very well and with great interest to the autonomous robot. In a series
of comparative trials, where the children played with a mobile robot (condition 1)
and also (separately) with a passive non-robotic toy (condition 2), children showed
greater interest in interactions with the robot than with the ‘inanimate’ toy.
The study just mentioned allowed us to compare the way in which the
children interacted with the robotic platform to the way they interacted with a
standard toy. In order to evaluate robot-human interactions we developed a
Behaviour time for two microbehaviours

100
80
Contact-Robot
Percentages
60 Contact-Toy
40 Eye gaze-Robot
Eye gaze-Toy
20
0
A B C D
Contact-Robot 69.03 41.95 83.9 19.24
Contact-Toy 56.91 60.55 2.99 57
Eye gaze-Robot 81.64 60.56 93.33 53.99
Eye gaze-Toy 40.24 71.67 14.18 60.33
Child
Figure 2.This figure displays selected results that are part of a larger comparative study
that involved 18 children and tested the two conditions (robot versus toy truck). Results
are shown for four boys with autism with regard to the microbehaviours eye gaze and
contact time (cf. Werry et al. 2001a). Contact time measures any instances when the
child touches, operates or handles the robot or the toy truck. Depicted are the percent-
ages of the micro-behaviours observed during the duration of the trial (approximately
four minutes of exposure to the robot followed by exposure to the toy truck). Full
results of the comparative study are presented in Werry (2003).
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technique for evaluating quantitatively video data of robot-child interaction

(Dautenhahn and Werry 2002). The technique is based on micro-behaviours
(Tardiff et al. 1995), including, among others, eye gaze (looking at the robot/
toy), contact (operating, touching or manipulating the robot/toy), and atten-
tion (towards the robot/toy). For a group of 18 children with autism, the
statistical results showed a significant increase in the interaction levels of the
children with the robot when considering the amount of eye gaze and attention
directed at the robot. However, when exposed to the toy the results showed a
significant increase in the children’s contact time (a combination of operating
the robot with touching and handling — pushing, picking up, etc. — the toy
and the robot). Since the non-robotic toy does not do anything unless children
touch and manipulate it, the results for contact time might not be very surpris-
ing. Figure 2 gives an example of the quantitative results of this study for four
children, clearly pointing out individual differences. The complete results for 18
children are presented in Werry (2003).
In the above mentioned study, our evaluations considered each behaviour
independently of the others. Generally, one also needs to examine the combina-
tion of behaviours, since isolated incidences may not give accurate results. For
example, child D interacted with the robot by allowing it to approach him.
When the robot was very close, the child took several steps backwards and again
waited for the robot to follow him. Then, when the child could not go back any
further due the room’s walls, he took several small steps into the robot’s space
and waited for the robot to reverse away from him before repeating this. In one
instance, when the robot moved too far so that the child could no longer be
detected by the robot, the child stepped sideways to continue the interaction.
Also, when this child was given the toy truck, he spent most of the interaction
time simply lifting it and the rest of the trial time ignoring it.
Note that eye gaze in this particular study refers to the child gazing at the
robot. Eye gaze in our study is therefore not reciprocal (the robot does not ‘look
back’), as it is the case when people make eye contact. In typically developing
children, eye gaze and eye contact are a vital part of social development: Dyadic
eye gaze is important to the regulation and management of face-to-face social
interaction (Lee et al. 1998; Leekam et al. 1997). Some studies provide evidence
that children with autism use less eye gaze in interactions as compared to
typically developing children (Wing and Gould 1979; Stone et al. 1997). Eye
gaze has also been shown to be more useful than verbal performance in
discriminating between children with autism and a control group of children
with moderate learning difficulties (Ruffman et al. 2001). The study also
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demonstrated that the children with autism who showed least eye gaze toward
a correct location (associated to the task) had the most severe autistic character-
istics. Many training programmes for children with autism include the training
of eye gaze behaviours and eye contact. The training criteria for ‘normal eye
gaze frequencies’ do however vary tremendously. As shown by Arnold et al.
(2000), peer-to-peer eye gaze in small playgroups of familiar typically develop-
ing children (5–10 years old) were significantly less than previously reported
data that was based on adult-child or adult-adult dyads. Thus, it remains
unclear how much ‘eye gaze’ behaviour should be taught to children with
autism. But whatever the ‘normal eye gaze frequencies’ are, research suggests
that eye gaze is an educationally and therapeutically relevant behaviour. In our
work we assume that it can be used as an indicator of interest- and engagement-
level, similar to attention and contact behaviours, although we are aware that
for children with autism the correlation between these behaviours and levels of
engagement/interest might be less straightforward than for typically developing
children. Any interpretation of our data therefore must be cautious.
For more details on the quantitative and qualitative evaluations of children
with autism interacting with robots in the Aurora project, see Werry et al.
(20001a,b), Dautenhahn and Werry (2002), Dautenhahn et al. (2002b), Werry
(2003). Evaluation is a major issue in our work. A range of different qualitative
as well as quantitative evaluation techniques are needed in order to reveal not
only statistical regularities and patterns, but also meaningful events of behaviour in
context. For instance, an application of Conversation Analysis has revealed interest-
ing aspects of how the robot can elicit communication and interaction competen-
cies of children with autism (Dautenhahn et al. 2002; Robins et al., in press).
2.4.4 An example
In order to exemplify the types of interaction that occur in the Aurora project,
we now provide a narrative account of one particular boy with autism interact-
ing with a mobile robot, displaying some ‘typical’ behaviour also observed in
other children with autism. The example shows different ways of how a boy
with autism plays with a mobile robot. This indicates that, in addition to the
quantitative observational data used to assess the occurrence of micro-behav-
iours such as eye gaze (cf. Figure 2), other behaviours are difficult to evaluate
without considering the context in which they occur. We shall call the boy with
autism that took part in the comparative study Olaf.
Olaf interacted with the robot before he was exposed to the toy truck. On
entering the room, he investigated the toy that was located on the floor and
then he exited the room. When he re-entered the room, the trial started. On
entering the room for the second time, he looked around before one of the
investigators showed him the robot and turned it on. As this was happening
Olaf again looked around the room. There seemed to be not enough to keep his
attention, as the robot was not acting at that point. However, twelve seconds
into the trial, he again noticed the robot and approached it. The robot was still
inactive and he walked away from it again. However, he continuously glanced
at the robot, for periods between one and three seconds. Thirty seconds into the
trial, the robot began to move as one of the investigators prompted it to move.
This seemed to catch Olaf ’s attention: he again looked at the robot and stopped
moving around the room. He continued to gaze at it for eight seconds, before
moving away. However, he continued to watch the robot as he moved around
it for thirteen seconds. At this point, he became interested in the experimenter
and the video camera. After moving around the room, he avoided the robot as
it moved towards him, but kept observing it. Seventy-five seconds into the trial,
Olaf bent down to interact with the robot at its level, looking around it, investigat-
ing it and touching it gently. When the investigator turned the robot around and
it headed towards him, Olaf was not disturbed by the robot’s movement towards
him, and did not attempt to move away, even though he was seated on the
floor. He even leaned lower to gaze at the sensor of the robot, commonly
treated by the children as the ‘front’ of the robot. In total, Olaf was seated on
the floor for seventy seconds, and spent fifty seven seconds gazing at the robot.
Two minutes and forty seconds into the trial, Olaf reached for the toy truck and
brought it out, interacting with both the toy and the robot simultaneously.
Initially, Olaf was more interested in the toy than the robot, but twenty
seven seconds after the toy was brought out, he used the toy to interact with the
robot. He did this by placing the toy in front of the robot, and it backed away.
It is significant to note that Olaf did not engage in this type of operation of the
robot without the toy being there, and that no one had told him that the robot
would behave in this way. He then continued to ‘push’ the robotic platform
backwards by placing the toy in front of it, so as to trigger the robot’s forward
sensors. Eighty seconds after the toy was brought out, Olaf switched his
attention back to the robot, ignoring the toy and gazing at the robot for twenty
seven seconds, at which point Olaf again distributed his attention between the
toy and the robot, operating the robot by using the toy.
This type of behaviour is typical for Olaf. He appeared cautious in his
interactions, and looked around the room frequently. He kept a distance from
the robot and appeared uncertain about interaction of any kind. He seemed to
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be encouraged to interact with the robot through using the toy rather than in a
direct manner. This might indicate a willingness to engage in interaction. It is
hoped that, with further familiarity with the robot, Olaf will be more confident
in the way that he uses the robot, to a point where he might be able to explore
the interactions and to learn from them.
Several other trials have been conducted in the Aurora project. For exam-
ple, in a different set of trials (dual-child trials) we investigated three pairs of
children with autism who were simultaneously exposed to the robot. Different
play styles could be observed. These trials point towards the possible role of the
robot as a mediator — a device that mediates interactions between people
(Werry et al. 2001b; Robins et al. 2004; Robins et al., in press). This mediating
role is very different from how we used the robot in the single child trials, where
the robot’s purpose was to teach basic interaction skills through play. Generally,
besides the obvious role of a robot as a therapeutic interaction partner, different
roles of robots in autism therapy can be envisaged (Dautenhahn 2003).
2.5 Current work

Our current and future work with mobile robots primarily targets scenarios B
and C mentioned in Section 2.4. Specifically, this includes the following
research directions:
– Long-term studies with children with autism, using repeated exposures to
the robot, identifying possible therapeutic or educational effects (Robins et
al. 2004; Robins at al., in press).
– Comparative studies with different types of robots, identifying differences
in the appropriateness of different robot designs as a therapeutic toy (e.g.,
mobile as opposed to humanoid robots (Dautenhahn and Billard 2002).
– Addressing the “imitation deficit” in children with autism by designing
scenarios for studying whether and how children with autism can be
encouraged to engage in imitative interaction games with robots.
– Further detailed analysis of robot-child interaction, including the identifi-
cation of different play patterns. In this research direction we study typical-
ly developing children as well as children with autism (see Dautenhahn et
al. 2003 and Salter et al. 2004 for initial studies on identifying play patterns
with typically developing children).
– Development of robots that can adapt to individual children and their
needs, robots that can ‘grow’ with the child’s changing needs and individual
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preferences, and that can guide the child through different therapeutically
relevant interactions. This is by far our most long-term goal.
3. Comparison of robotic and virtual environments
In this section we outline some of the design issues that play an important role
in the Aurora project. We then discuss these in the context of interactive virtual
environments, in order to demonstrate differences or commonalities between
robotic and virtual environments in autism therapy.
3.1 Controlled and safe learning environments

The autistic spectrum disorder covers a huge range of different abilities and
needs. Even within particular age spans individual differences can be immense.
The target group therefore needs to be identified very clearly. However, even
then interactive environments must be taken into account for specifying the
individual needs of the children. Virtual environments can be designed as
learning environments. Applications include the treatment of specific phobias
(North et al. 2002) such as fear of flying, teaching social skills to people with
Asperger Syndrome (Cobb et al. 1998; Parsons and Mitchell 2002), as well as
other areas of therapy and rehabilitation (e.g., Greenleaf 1994; Wilson et al.
1997). Virtual environments also have a potential use for children with autism
(Kijima et al. 1994; Strickland et al. 1995; Strickland 1996). In such environ-
ments input stimuli can be controlled and the child’s behaviour can be moni-
tored. Successive learning sessions can be evaluated in order to monitor the
progress of teaching objectives, which are controlled by the teachers. Environ-
ments can be customised to account for individual differences. Children can be
guided through learning experiences and encouraged to explore new behaviour-
al opportunities by themselves. Such environments can provide safe environ-
ments with little or no intervention by another human, although teachers
and/or parents (family) of the children are usually important participants in
trials with children with autism. Dorothy Strickland (1996) gives an example of
a virtual environment used as a learning environment for children with autism.
Such environments can partially replace time-consuming, routine teaching
sessions, if they are properly integrated within the curriculum and teaching
method used in the schools. Alternatively, such environments could be built for
use at home, in a playful and exploratory context where children might use the
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environment in a more creative way. Enjoyment, and an increase of the children’s

quality of life, is a goal as desirable as skill learning (cf. Cobb et al. 1998).
3.2 Proactive behaviour

One of the diagnostic criteria for autism in DSM-IV is “a lack of spontaneous
seeking to share enjoyment, interest, or achievements with other people (e.g., by
a lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out objects of interest)”. As discussed
by Mundy (1995), there is evidence that young children with autism have,
compared to typically developing children, a lower tendency to initiate non-
verbal joint attention acts. Such acts usually involve eye contact and gestures to
show objects to others or to share the experience of an object or an event with
others (intersubjectivity). In contrast, they seem less impaired in using eye
contact and gestures to initiate non-verbal requesting acts, e.g., for eliciting aid
in requesting objects or events from social partners. It has been suggested that
deficits in self-initiated, social-approach behaviours may be central to the
psychopathology in autism (Mundy 1995). Not unsurprisingly, teaching pro-
active social behaviour plays an important part in educating children with
autism. Many special needs schools for children with autism use a system
known as TEACCH (Treatment and education of autistic and related commu-
nication handicapped children — Watson et al. 1989). This system has been
developed to encourage the child with autism to explore and develop pro-active
skills and uses a system of stimulus and response. Like other behavioural
approaches, TEACCH emphasises structure, specific behaviours are targeted,
conditions and consequences of eliciting the behaviour are defined, and
behaviour is shaped through the use of cueing and prompting. Functionality
(behavioural view) and pragmatics (psycholinguistic view) are central issues in
the TEACCH methodology. “More meanings for more purposes in more
situations” are taught prior to teaching communication with more complex
forms (Watson et al. 1989: 9). Naturalistic, less structured settings with natural-
istic consequences are preferred to artificial settings. The TEACCH curriculum
addresses a wide spectrum of communicative functions (request, get attention,
reject or refuse, comment, give information, seek information, express feelings,
social routine) and forms of communication (motoric, gestural, vocal, pictorial,
written, sign, verbal). A robotic or virtual agent is able to complement this
approach as it can prompt through behaviour in a constant and predictable
manner. In this way, initiative-taking and spontaneous communication can
potentially be encouraged.
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3.3 Embodied interaction

Virtual environments as described by Strickland (1996) require that the
children are wearing VR helmets. This might be appropriate for some children,
but we can expect that this is not feasible for many children with autism. Here,
‘non-tethered’ approaches can be investigated. Particularly promising seem
approaches which support interactions involving the whole body, in set-ups
where the child can move freely, i.e., where the child is not constrained to
sitting at a desk, is not required to wear special devices, and is not ‘tethered’ in
any way. Such environments can address particularly well the dynamics of
motor behaviour in (social) interactions. Children with autism often show a
distorted and usually ‘indifferent’ attitude towards their body. DSM-IV
mentions “stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms (e.g., hand or finger
flapping or twisting, or complex whole-body movements)” as a diagnostic
criterion for autism. Also, self-injurious behaviour, abnormal complex behav-
iours of the body, and eating disorders can be observed. Leary and Hill (1996)
provide an overview of extensive evidence of movement disturbance and
abnormalities in motor behaviour in individuals with autism. Interestingly, it
seems that symptoms of movement disturbance are not necessarily directly
linked to the perceived functioning level. Based on the existing evidence, it
seems that people with autism show body image distortions, i.e., an impairment
in the mental construct of a body image that comprises the individual’s percep-
tual experience of his body, his emotional attitude towards his own body, and
the conceptual understanding of his body in general (as defined in Gallagher
1995). Body image distortions are likely to impact on an individual’s abilities,
will, and motivation to relate to other people. In order to support movement
and physical play, special needs schools for children with autism usually have
playrooms and various different facilities for multi-modal and bodily experi-
ences. As explained above, interactive environments can provide learning
environments more sophisticated and controllable than those commonly used,
based on common teaching practises, e.g., addressing issues of visual percep-
tion, mindreading and general problem solving. Additionally, interactive
environments can explore new teaching practises based on an exploratory and
playful approach involving the ‘complete child’, namely involving physical
movement. In contrast to traditional approaches, robotic and other interactive
environments (cf. Bobick et al. 1999; Penny 2000) can allow the child to move
around more ‘freely’, or less constrained than when confined to a chair.
Embodied interaction can enrich learning environments, e.g., by helping
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children with autism to explore their own bodies and how they interact with
their environment. Thus, bodily interaction itself can be as therapeutically
relevant as the ‘content’ of the interaction.
3.4 Generalisation
A major problem in all therapeutic approaches to autism is generalisation: A
child often shows improved performance in the particular teaching environ-
ment (e.g., in classroom) but has great difficulty in generalising the learning
experience and applying the newly acquired skill to non-classroom situations.
Virtual environments have a good potential in this respect: Creating different
contexts and environments in the classroom and changing features and shapes
of objects in the environment is very time-consuming and often not feasible,
whereas creating alternative scenarios or variations in virtual environments is
comparatively easy. This is important for specific learning objectives as well as
for a broader approach, e.g., the general facilitation of imaginative skills. To give
an example: If a teacher enacts a story together with children, then the colour of
a blanket cannot be changed instantaneously, nor can a sword suddenly appear
out of thin air. Typically developing children can easily compensate for these
‘deficiencies’ of the real world, for their imaginative skills allow them to create
different worlds and alternative or fictional realities, as shown by role-play.
However, as the imaginative skills of children with autism are often impaired,
they prefer the concrete, the visible. The shape of a robot cannot change
suddenly; it cannot grow wings and fly away. However, in virtual environments
rich, dynamic, and at the same time concrete and visible worlds can be created,
although mostly limited to the visual (a child doesn’t get wet if it starts raining,
the feeling of raindrops on the skin cannot be experienced ‘virtually’). However,
the issue of how a child with autism can transfer skills learnt in virtual environ-
ments to the real world remains unsolved.
3.5 Presence
‘Presence’ is a key issue in designing virtual environments (e.g., Heeter 1992):
The acceptance of virtual environments does depend strongly on whether the
user’s presence in the artificial environment is believable, i.e., whether he or she
has the impression of ‘being there’. Often reality is confusing to a person with
autism; clear boundaries, meaning, and order seem to be missing. Thus, for
children with autism the feeling of ‘being there’, in the real world, is likely to be
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different from what we experience. Possibly, virtual environments intensify the

impairment of presence and the feeling of ‘alienation’. Thus, particular atten-
tion is necessary in order to ensure that experiences in virtual environments are
made real and meaningful, thus providing the link to experiences in the real
world. Using interactive physical robots avoids this problem to some extent.
Such interactions are not necessarily ‘natural’ (i.e., children interact with a
robot and not with another human being), but the interactions are grounded in
experiences in the real world in the sense that the children are interacting with
a physical robot in the real world, not with a virtual agent in a synthetic environ-
ment. However, given the current state of the art as far as robots that can be
used as toys for children are concerned, the robots’ interactive abilities (e.g.,
range of different behaviours) are limited in comparison to what is technically
possible in software environments.
3.6 Holistic perception

As discussed by Frith (1989) and Frith and Happé (1994), people with autism
have a tendency to process perceptual information at the local rather than the
global level. The weak central coherence theory can explain why people with
autism outperform other people in standard visual illusions, since they focus on
individual parts of a figure rather than the gestalt, or why people with autism are
less proficient than other persons in using the contextual cues necessary to
disambiguate homographs with identical spelling but context-dependent
different pronunciation (Happé 1997). Interestingly, it has been shown that
central coherence in people with autism is weak, not lacking. Plaisted et al.
(1999) demonstrated that under a ‘selective attention’ condition (where the
experimenter overtly points out to the subjects whether they should pay
attention to the global or local level in a pattern recognition test) children with
autism performed in the same way as a control group of typically developing
children. Unlike the divided attention condition (without priming), in the
selective attention condition both groups showed global precedence effects,
demonstrating that global proceedings seem to be intact in children with
autism. Plaisted et al. suggest two possible interpretations of their results: (a)
while for typically developing children the output of local processing is inhibit-
ed by global processing, this mechanism requires overt priming in children with
autism, or (b) children with autism might voluntarily attend selectively to local
processing and local information.
Typically, in their natural environment, children with autism tend to focus
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on features and details of objects and sensations in their environment that are
of little interest to other people. For example, if an object is presented to the
child one cannot assume that the child directs his/her attention to the object as
a whole; it is rather likely that the child’s perception will focus on aspects of the
object, e.g., colour, shape, texture, structural details, etc. Persistent preoccupa-
tion with parts of objects is also used as a diagnostic criterion in DSM-IV. In the
Aurora project it is therefore vital to ‘hide’ any wires, buttons or other features
of the robot that might attract the children’s attention. Such changes in the
environment are easier to achieve in a virtual environment where different
aspects of the world can be hidden, highlighted, dynamically changed (depend-
ing on the child’s activities), presented differently, etc.
4. Conclusion
This article introduced the project Aurora and discussed its background,
motivation as well as particular challenges and issues involved in developing
interactive robotic systems as therapeutic teaching devices for children with
autism. Some comparisons were drawn between robotic and virtual learning
environments. It is hoped that the development of robust and believable
interactive systems (robotic and software) can support the education and
therapy of children with autism, so that ultimately such technologies can
become an integrated part of the curriculum, being used by teachers and
parents and tailored towards specific individual needs of children with autism.
Providing an enjoyable and entertaining ‘toy’ specifically adapted to the needs
of the children, thereby increasing the quality of life of children with autism, is
an integral part of the Aurora project. However, helping children with autism
develop social skills is methodologically and technically demanding. Given the
nature of autism, only long-term studies will reveal if and how this goal can be met.
From an Artificial Intelligence research point of view children with autism
constitute a very special user group with immense heterogeneity. It is unlikely
that one specific robotic design can be used generically. Based on our experi-
ence thus far we assume that only a range of robotic designs can meet the
particular requirements of particular groups of children and individuals. Thus,
the design space of interactive environments needs to be explored and linked to
the space of sets of requirements, the niche space (Sloman 1995). One might
speculate that (different types of) robotic therapeutic tools might serve for
(different sets of) requirements addressing primarily bodily, physical interaction,
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while (different types of) virtual environments might serve for (different sets of)
requirements addressing primarily imaginative and cognitive skills. There might
be niches for various types of interactive environments with virtual or robotic
agents which could be used in the therapy of children with autism, e.g., human-
oid and non-humanoid robots, multi-media interactive environments, digitally
enhanced toys, and virtual environments ranging from desktop VE’s to immer-
sive interactive learning and play environments (Bobick et al. 1999; Penny
2000). Among the big challenges is the development of appropriate design
methodologies and evaluation methods, so that different interactive environ-
ments and their effectiveness in the application domain of autism therapy and
education can be assessed and compared.
Future robot developments and trials with children with autism will tell
whether our initial goal, namely to facilitate social interaction skills of children
with autism in interactions with robots, can be reached. It needs to be demon-
strated whether and how the children can generalise any skills learnt during play
with the robot to peers or adults. Note that the development of an ‘attachment’
of a child with autism to a robot is not our primary aim; we rather hope to
further the interaction skills of a child with autism with people. Future results
will clarify to what extent robots can contribute to either educational or
therapeutic aims.
One issue in the Aurora project which is at present quite unclear, and which
we have therefore not yet addressed explicitly, is the role of affective aspects in
child-robot interactions. We exploit the fact that children with autism seem to
find interactions with a mobile robot rewarding and enjoyable (we observe
many positive facial and vocal expressions during the trials), but we do not
address the affective dimension of interaction specifically. Yet, if we succeed in
teaching a child to show pro-active social behaviour skills towards a robot, can
this be achieved without any affective feedback from the interaction partner, as
it is the case with robots? Can we teach imitative skills with a machine, i.e.,
without genuine intersubjectivity? How would ‘intersubjectivity’ between a
child with autism and a robot look like? Should one ‘fake’ or ‘simulate’ affect in
robots, e.g., by equipping robots with articulated faces and other means to
express emotions? If we do, what are the ethical issues involved in encouraging
the development of affective attachment of a child with autism with a robot that
is not more than a machine, and that does not possess genuine emotions? From
the perspective of a person with autism, and her needs, are these ethical
concerns really relevant?
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"dau-r10">
"dau-r1">
"dau-r2">
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Notes
*Takashi Gomi, director of Applied AI Systems Inc., kindly donated the robot used in the
Aurora project for the trials mentioned in this paper. We are grateful for Takashi Gomi’s
support and encouragement throughout the project. We would like to thank Patricia Beevers
and the teaching staff at Radlett Lodge School: the trials would not have been possible
without their collaboration. Many thanks to Prof. Stuart Powell, Dr. William Harwin and
other members of the Aurora team who have contributed valuable comments over the years.
Parts of this paper are based on preliminary discussions in (Dautenhahn, 2000c). The
authors would like to thank anonymous reviewers for very constructive comments on an
earlier version of this paper.
1. Among the many possible meanings of ‘remedial’, we use the term to reflect our goal of
improving (social) skills in children with autism.
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Authors’ addresses
Kerstin Dautenhahn, Iain Werry
Adaptive Systems Research Group
Department of Computer Science
University of Hertfordshire,
College Lane
Hatfield, Herts AL10 9AB
United Kingdom
Email: [email protected], [email protected]
About the authors

Kerstin Dautenhahn (Ph.D. University of Bielefeld) is Professor of Artificial Intelligence in
the Department of Computer Science at the University Hertfordshire, where she coordinates
the Adaptive Systems Research Group. She is a former member of the AI division of the
German National Research Center for Information Technology, the AI Lab at Vrije
Universiteit Brussel, and the Department of Cybernetics at University of Reading. Her main
research interests are Socially Intelligent Agents, social robotics and Artificial Life. She has
edited 10 special journal issues in various journals and is principal investigator of projects on
social robotics and robotic toys in autism therapy. Her publications include more than 100
research articles and three edited books: Human Cognition and Social Agent Technology
(2000), Imitation in Animals and Artifacts (2002), and Socially Intelligent Agents — Creating
Relationships with Computers and Robots (2002). She is co-editor of Interaction Studies: Social
Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systems.
</TARGET "dau">
Iain Werry (PhD, University of Reading) is a Lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire,

where he pursues research on patterns of behaviour displayed by children with autism
interacting with a robotic agent. His research interests include human-robot interaction,
behaviour based robotics and robots as therapy devices.

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Towards Interactive Robots in Autism Therapy

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Towards interactive robots

Kerstin Dautenhahn and Iain Werry

This article discusses the potential of using interactive environments in

This article discusses the potential use of interactive environments as learning

Pragmatics & Cognition 12:1 (2004), 1–35.

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2. The AURORA project

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2.2 Interactive technology in autism therapy

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aspects of robotic design, our work is primarily guided by therapeutic issues.

2.3 Brief project description

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2.4 Theoretical background and working hypotheses

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autism) and the predictability of repetitive and monotonous behaviour which

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detects that the child is engaged in interactions, it could introduce more

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Sharing perceptions and beliefs is assumed to be beyond the ‘autistic universe’

2.4.2 Homo imitans: Interaction games children play

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rhythmic interaction games (comprising, for instance, vocalisations and body

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psychological theories on the nature of autism that the particular research

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2.4.3 Overview of results

Behaviour time for two microbehaviours

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technique for evaluating quantitatively video data of robot-child interaction

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2.5 Current work

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3. Comparison of robotic and virtual environments

3.1 Controlled and safe learning environments

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environment in a more creative way. Enjoyment, and an increase of the children’s

3.2 Proactive behaviour

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3.3 Embodied interaction

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diﬀerent from what we experience. Possibly, virtual environments intensify the

3.6 Holistic perception

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Greenleaf, W. J. and Tovar, M. A. 1994. “Augmenting reality in rehabilitation medicine”.

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Montgomery, D. E. and Montgomery, D. A. 1999. “The inﬂuence of movement and outcome